Highlight of Reiner’s career? Coaching Meg Ryan on faking it

Coaching Meg Ryan on how to fake an orgasm was one of the highlights of Rob Reiner’s career as a director.

Reiner also helmed “Stand by Me,” “A Few Good Men,” “Misery,” “The Princess Bride” and “This Is Spinal Tap,” but the scene at Katz’s Deli for “When Harry Met Sally” (1989) — when Sally (Ryan) proves to Harry (Billy Crystal) how easy it is to fake orgasms — stands out because Reiner’s late mother, Estelle, had the punchline.

When a waiter comes over to take her order, Estelle nods at Ryan and famously says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

On Monday night, when Reiner was honored with the 41st Chaplin Award by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Ryan described how Reiner worked up a sweat moaning and pounding the table as he coached her, and how Reiner said, “How sick is this? I’m doing this in front of my mother.”

Also paying homage were James Caan, Martin Scorsese and Michael Douglas, who stars in Reiner’s upcoming movie, “And So It Goes.”